<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
    "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en">
<head>
  <title>Old compilers</title>
  <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
  <link rel="icon" href="/favicon.ico" type="image/ico" />
  <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/style-v2/section-boost.css" />

  <!--[if IE 7]> <style type="text/css"> body { behavior: url(/style-v2/csshover3.htc); } </style> <![endif]-->
</head>
<!-- Don't edit this page! It's generated by site-tools/site-tools.py -->
<body>
  <div id="heading">
    <!--#include virtual="/common/heading.html" -->  </div>

  <div id="body">
    <div id="body-inner">
      <div id="content">
        <div class="section" id="intro">
          <div class="section-0">
            <div class="section-title">
              <h1>Old compilers</h1>
            </div>

            <div class="section-body">
              <h2><span class=
              "news-title">Old compilers</span></h2>

              <p><span class=news-date">August 5th, 2013 20:00 GMT</span></p>


              <div class="news-description">
                <div class="description">


  <p>
    I just sent an email to user list asking if anyone is using old compilers, I'll
    repeat it here:
  </p>
  <blockquote>
    <p>
      Hello all,
    </p>
    <p>
      There has been some discussion on the development list about dropping all support
      for old C++ compilers. This will allow us to remove a lot of workarounds and
      simplify the code but before doing so it's a good idea to find out if anyone
      is still using them. Using boost with these compilers will cause a compile
      error in the config library (you can work round that using a custom configuration,
      but it's unlikely you'll be able to get much to work). The currently proposed
      versions for removing support are:
    </p>
    <ul>
      <li>
        <div>
          Digital Mars 8.40 and earlier
        </div>
      </li>
      <li>
        <div>
          Visual C++ 7.0 and earlier
        </div>
      </li>
      <li>
        <div>
          GCC 3.2 and earlier
        </div>
      </li>
      <li>
        <div>
          Intel C++ 5.0 and earlier
        </div>
      </li>
    </ul>
    <p>
      Which is, I think, a very cautious list. There's also a good chance that we
      might want to remove support for Borland C++ 5.x. Is there anyone still using
      those compilers?
    </p>
    <p>
      Just to be clear, this doesn't mean we'll be fully supporting all compilers
      later than these. Old compilers such as Visual C++ 7.1 and gcc 3.4 won't have
      a config error and we won't deliberately remove support, but support will be
      patchy. Many libraries (especially new ones) don't support those compilers,
      and we also don't have any formal testing for them, so if a new change breaks
      something, it might not be noticed.
    </p>
    <p>
      If you are still using compilers which are a little more recent than the ones
      listed above, it might still be worth mentioning in case we consider removing
      support for them in the future.
    </p>
    <p>
      Thanks in advance for any response,
    </p>
    <p>
      Daniel James
    </p>
  </blockquote>
  <p>
    <strong>Update:</strong> I had a few responses, but none were
    opposed to this change, so I made it in trunk a little while ago. It should be
    included in the next release.
  </p>
  <p>
    There was some concern that we would remove support for later compilers (e.g.
    Visual Studio 2008, aka. Visual C++ 9.0). We have no such plans, this change
    is only for very old compilers. As always support across Boost libraries is not
    uniform, but most library authors do try to support as wide a range of compilers
    as is feasible.
  </p>
</div>
              </div>
            </div>
          </div>
        </div>
      </div>

      <div id="sidebar">
        <!--#include virtual="/common/sidebar-common.html" --><!--#include virtual="/common/sidebar-boost.html" -->      </div>

      <div class="clear"></div>
    </div>
  </div>

  <div id="footer">
    <div id="footer-left">
      <div id="copyright">
        <p>Copyright Rene Rivera 2006-2007.</p>
      </div><!--#include virtual="/common/footer-license.html" -->    </div>

    <div id="footer-right">
      <!--#include virtual="/common/footer-banners.html" -->    </div>

    <div class="clear"></div>
  </div>
</body>
</html>
